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Reading, Publishing and Literacy

In this issue: a number of Canadian reports related to reading, publishing and literacy, including a detailed profile of the retail book market, an examination of demographic and cultural factors involved in book reading, statistics regarding youth literacy and a report on adult reading skills.

Articles

This report provides a profile of the retail book market in Canada. A key argument in the report is that "the supply of books in the Canadian market is growing much more quickly than is consumer demand".

This report examines demographic and other factors involved in book reading (as well as three other cultural activities).Overall, book reading appears to be an activity that is enjoyed fairly equally by many groups of Canadians.The report finds that cultural experiences and cultural exposure are, in general, more important factors in book reading than demographic factors. In fact, eight of the top 10 predictors of book reading are cultural activities, not demographic factors.

This report provides a detailed examination of the performance of Canadian 15-year olds in science, reading and mathematics in 2006. As noted in Statistics Canada's Daily article highlighting the report's findings, "Canadian 15-year-old students still are among the best in the world when it comes to science, reading and mathematics".

The key finding of Statistics Canada's report on the relationship between reading ability and educational outcomes is that "students with lower levels of reading at age 15 face challenges in graduating from high school by age 19: they are more likely to drop out of high school or to remain in high school at age 19, even after controlling for other factors".

The intent of Learning Literacy in Canada, based on an assessment of 2,000 adult Canadians from all literacy levels, is to understand "the nature of [Canada's] adult literacy challenges and the appropriate ways in which these could be addressed". Overall, as noted in Statistics Canada's Daily article related to the report, "Canada has very few people who exhibit a really limited capacity in reading skills".